by John Merwin

Let’s talk about China, Inc.. If you’ve bought much low- to medium-priced fishing tackle lately, chances are it was made in China. That country’s manufacturing capacity and sophistication have grown enormously in recent years, which combined with relatively cheap, skilled labor made it a logical source for many global tackle brands. But now that appears to be changing.

Not that Chinese-made tackle is about to disappear. It’s a very big industry there, and the Chinese fishing-trade expo--called “China Fish”--is a huge international deal.

But consider this current headline from the European fishing-trade journal Angling International: “Giants Accelerate Move out of China.” Rapala, for example, is moving some lure manufacturing along with some VMC hook operations from China to Batam, Indonesia.
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by John Merwin

Flashlights. Everybody needs at least one and--most often--more than one, each light suited to a particular task. In my case, that includes tying on a fly or lure after dark, finding my way through the alder tangles back to my truck, and illuminating the area around a camp stove so I can have dinner.

I recently had the chance to test five new-for-2012 flashlights, a couple of which are truly outstanding. Fortunately, my neighbors didn’t call the cops despite seeing all the odd-looking activity in my yard after dark. I am thus still free to report the following.

1. The PolyTac 90 LED is a small (4.1 ounces, 5.22 inches high) right-angled light that puts out a whopping 170 lumens at its highest setting with 3 hours and 45 minutes run time. On the lowest-output setting, the two 3-volt lithium batteries are said to last for 30 hours. An attached belt clip plus a hanging carabiner give various attachment options. At $85, it’s nice, but pricey. From streamlight.com.
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by Slaton L. White

How do you redesign an icon?

Carefully. Very carefully.

Just ask the guy responsible for the Wrangler YJ, which replaced the beloved (but slow-selling) CJ in the late 1980s. All in all, not a bad vehicle, but it was vilified for having square, instead of round, headlights.

Small beer? Not to the hard-core Jeep fan. Jeep engineers learned the lesson, and though the current model desperately needed an upgrade--especially a more powerful but fuel-efficient engine--designers knew they couldn’t change the shape or alter its iconic look in any substantial way. In other words, it had to have round headlamps, as well as the seven-slot grille, to carry on the hallowed Willys tradition.
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by John Merwin

The wages of my fishing-tackle sin have come home to roost. Thinking about an upcoming saltwater trip to the Rhode Island shore, I pulled a favorite wide-spool baitcaster off the shelf. Bad, John. Very bad.

The reel suffers mightily from corrosion and accumulated grit. All the cleaning and maintenance I should have done last fall or winter somehow got put off. Just as such things always seem to get put off. But I want to use the reel in a couple of weeks, so now I've got to do it.

It’s a classic case of a fishing writer’s “do what I say; not what I do.” I mean, how many times have I preached about taking good care of good tackle?
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by John Merwin

In last week’s post I mentioned that this week I was going to talk about abrasion resistance in fishing lines. The ability of different types and brands of line to withstand being rubbed hard over any rough surface is obviously important. When a hooked fish drags your line across an underwater rock, you are of course hoping--maybe even expecting--that the line won’t break.

Line companies make all sorts of claims as to the abrasion resistance of their respective products. And it’s quite true that some lines are more abrasion resistant than others. The problem comes in the way in which manufacturers measure abrasion resistance, which to my mind bears little relation to actual fishing situations. I think dragging a line under tension between your hands and across a rough-surfaced rock (as shown in the photo) is the best test. But first, let’s look at what the line companies do.

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by John Merwin

The International Fly Tackle Dealer Show--a fly fishing trade show--takes place in New Orleans this week, and you’re going to be hearing a lot about it. Websites and blogs devoted all or in part to fly fishing will be all over it, covering new products introduced for the coming season as well as whatever industry gossip comes their way.

With that in mind, I thought I’d offer a little inside history of the whole deal, which also involves considerable personal history as well. Through the 1970s, both fly fishing itself and fly fishing media--then mostly magazines--were growing rapidly. There was no fly fishing trade association back then, nor was there any fly fishing media devoted to the trade. There was instead a general fishing-tackle trade show (formerly known as AFTMA, now called ICAST) within which the much smaller fly fishing community felt somewhat marginalized and lost.

In 1979, when I was leaving my editing job at Fly Fisherman magazine to start what became Fly Rod & Reel magazine, I was also taking part in some industry meetings aimed at possibly starting a fly fishing trade association. Scott Rods founder Harry Wilson, Scientific Anglers head Lew Jewett, and Leon Chandler from Cortland Line were in the forefront at the time--all friends of mine and all now very unfortunately deceased. [ Read Full Post ]